{"id":60,"date":"2015-11-16T07:07:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T13:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thespectacle.wpengine.com\/?p=60"},"modified":"2016-05-11T11:26:25","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T16:26:25","slug":"jane-wong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/?p=60","title":{"rendered":"Poetry by Jane Wong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Demolition Day<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

I saw a crane lift a train. It took the wheels
\nin its teeth and shook it like a rug.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, my failure has been causing me
\na lot of grief lately. Just yesterday, a man<\/p>\n

bumped into me on purpose. He said,
\nI\u2019m sorry, did I bump into you?<\/em><\/p>\n

Conversation is the beginning of all disaster.
\nHow I wish I had a haystack to disappear into then,<\/p>\n

a whole hill slumped before me. My legs over
\nthe precipice, becoming a plant to crawl upon.<\/p>\n

Or a ring of water at the bottom of a vase,
\nexpanding infinitely—a monsterhead<\/p>\n

of lilac perfume. I grow lonelier by the day,
\nthe day lowers in another part of town,<\/p>\n

in train cars converted into restaurants,
\nclinking through the empty night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nocere<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

I wore the dawn
\naround my neck.<\/p>\n

Was the whole day
\na waste? To yawn,<\/p>\n

I poured a pitcher
\ninto the wind.<\/p>\n

For clarity, for grace.
\nI heard the wind<\/p>\n

turn its head, into
\na car hitting a tree<\/p>\n

without palms.
\nI faced the highway,<\/p>\n

nocere<\/em>, lazily
\npunching the sky.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n

Jane Wong is the author of Overpour<\/i> (Action Books, 2016). Her poems have appeared in places such as Best American Poetry 2015, Best New Poets 2012, Pleiades, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Volta<\/i>, and others. She is a Kundiman Fellow and has received fellowships and scholarships from the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Squaw Valley, and the Fine Arts Work Center.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Demolition Day | Nocere<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}